Читать книгу Iermola - Józef Ignacy Kraszewski - Страница 11

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Thus they parted,--these men whom chance had brought together, whom an hour's conversation had made friends, and who were perhaps never to meet again during their lives. It is strange, but where manners and social conditions are primitive, friendship and sympathy between men are easy, and they are unhesitatingly fraternal; and on the other hand, when men become civilized and polished, they carefully and politely avoid personal relations and fear and shun each other.

But among the lower classes it is quite the reverse; and I cannot say that things are any the worse for it. An hour is sufficient to bring two strangers together, and make them feel almost like brothers; a hearty speech or a sympathetic look excites ready confidence and prompt exchange of feeling; friendship is quickly formed, and grows as vigorously and ardently as hatred. Here at least, men are men.

Good Iermola, as the old man was called, then returned to his own house, his head still full of his old memories, while the young boatman, whistling a tune and thinking of the poor and friendless old man, spread down the bundle of straw upon which he was to stretch himself in front of the cabin door, content to go to rest; for as soon as the sun is set, the peasant, no matter what the hour may be, is always ready to sleep if only he is allowed to do so.

Meantime, Iermola walked slowly toward his lodging, which was but a short distance away. Between the village and the river, on a sandy bit of ground strewn with the trunks of old pines and oaks broken down from old age, mutilated also in many places by the hand of lazy villagers who were not willing to take the trouble to go to the forest for their fire-wood, stood an old building curiously constructed, which served as a shelter for our old servant. It was neither a thatched cottage nor a dwor, but simply a ruin,--an old deserted inn which once had covered a far larger space, and which had been knocked down and demolished by some unknown accident. Its roof had disappeared; its bare beams and rafters crossed one another here and there; and fragments of the straw thatching were still hanging suspended above the corners of the old walls. One of these corners, although strangely bent and filled with long cracks, still remained standing and entire; here might be seen a window half chinked up with mud, with a few panes of glass still left at the top, a door which had been freshly patched and nailed together, and walls which once had been painted white, but which now wore a coat of doubtful gray.

The rest of the building was all one mass of ugly ruins,--beams and rotten planks, blackened woodwork, pieces of rubbish all buried together, covered with mud and overrun with briers and high grass.

By what miracle was the fragment of roof still held in place over the room which it sheltered? How had this remnant of the building been preserved? These were questions difficult to answer.

Quite near the old building, a paling of half-rotten laths surrounded a small garden, shaded at one end by a clump of pines and large oaks.

Above the roof rose the old chimney, black, bare, and cracked, which, however, still served to warm the sole inhabitant of this poor lodging. The mouldiness of the beams, which were rotting on the ground, extended to the walls, which remained standing; the work of destruction might here be seen in all stages from beginning to completion, and one might quite certainly foretell the time when these miserable ruins would be only a vast mass of wood, mud, and useless rubbish. Gazing upon this wretched dwelling, it seemed cruel to think that a man should be obliged to find shelter there. Yet Iermola, accustomed to his pile of trash, approached this den without repugnance; he opened the door and entered his chamber. Then, as it was very dark inside, he hastened to kindle the fire and make a blaze of pine wood which he kept ready for this purpose in the little hearth of his stove.

Gradually every corner of the room was lighted up, and might be seen distinctly by the blaze of the dry wood. It was a small chamber situated in an angle of the building, where the roof and walls were still left, and which must formerly have been used as a bedchamber and office for the innkeeper.

The doorway opening into the large dining-hall of the inn, now entirely destroyed and uninhabitable, had a few planks nailed across it which were chinked with a mixture of chopped straw and mud. The large old stove, having been patched and mended every year, had lost its rectangular form and become externally utterly irregular, bulged out, rounded, dented, and altogether shapeless; and the metal plates which formerly closed it were now replaced by some tiles. Inside the fireplace, now stopped up, a few planks served as cupboard shelves, and the end of the mantel-piece as table and sideboard.

It may be easily imagined that the furniture was not elegant. It was partly of village manufacture, and had been roughly made with axe and saw; the rest was composed of a few respectable old pieces brought from the dwor. When the new owners sent Iermola away empty-handed, after thirty years of service, he was granted, as sole recompense for a long life of labour and devotion, permission to take with him a few old, broken, and useless pieces of furniture which otherwise would have been thrown on the rubbish pile. The poor but worthy and industrious old man had succeeded in transforming these into almost comfortable furnishings. The ingenious Iermola knew how to make the most of the least thing; and so his one apartment was soon quite decked out with souvenirs of his youth and happy days. He slept on an old sofa with broken and twisted feet, which was of fine wood, and had once been painted white and gilded. At his head stood a little round table supporting a chess-board which had been made and inlaid by the hand of some old master; two or three old chairs, upon whose seats some boards, nailed on, took the place of the velvet cushions, were evidently of Dantzick manufacture, but it was only by the aid of numberless nails and strings that the different pieces succeeded in holding together. Near them was a large wooden chest painted green, whose rough appearance clearly indicated that it had been made in the village. A bench, rough-hewn with an axe, was near the door; another table of unplaned plank served to hold all his collection of jugs and plates of common pottery. In contrast, on the mantel-piece stood a small pitcher of fine Sèvres china, without a handle; egg-cups and mustard-pots with delicate bright flowers shone there, a tea-pot of Saxon china with dainty feet, one of which had been broken off fifty years before, a cup of Wedgwood, and a butter-dish of Russian manufacture in the shape of a paschal lamb. The general appearance of the good man's chamber was poor and neat, but sad, because it was filled with mementos of former comfort striving to conceal present poverty. The drapery which covered the wall near his bed was a fragment of Turkey carpet, torn and patched, but still in strong contrast with the coarse bed-coverings. Broken glasses, porcelain, and bits of china glittered beside pots of clay, mahogany, and pine. On the wall, not far from a rude picture of Our Lady of Poczai, was hung a fine engraving by Raphael Morghen, horribly mouldy and old, with part of one corner torn off; it was "The Last Supper," after the painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Farther on was an old picture of the twelve apostles, by Hoffmann, of Prague, and a small painting on wood of the German school, much injured, and representing the birth of our Saviour.

The only real adornment of the room, therefore, was the exquisite neatness and order which reigned in it. There was no litter to be seen in any part of it, not the smallest crumb or the least speck of dust; each thing was in its place, and although in this poor apartment all sorts of things were mingled,--provisions, food, cooking utensils, the poor man's wardrobe, and all his simple stores,--there was neither inconvenience nor confusion. Cupboards were made on the walls, shelves set up in the corners of the room, the large chests rolled under the table; the hiding-place behind the stove--the fireplace, over which a piece of cloth was hung--served to shut up and conceal all disorderly objects. Even the chips and bits of wood used to kindle the fire were piled up neatly in their own proper corner. It is true that Iermola had very near at hand, in the ruins of the inn, a sort of cellar surrounded by walls, where he stored his more cumbrous provisions; but he could not leave many things in a place which had no fastening, for poverty, scorning the laws of proprietorship, often dares to share with poverty.

On entering, the old man contented himself with lighting in the stove his pieces of resinous wood, for candles or oil were luxuries which he did not allow himself; then he looked around to see if all was in good order in his dwelling. After that he took one of his pots and proceeded to warm his supper, which the cossack's widow usually prepared for him in the village, or which he sometimes cooked himself on his return to his lodging; and then he seated himself on a stool in the corner of the fireplace, and began to say his prayers.

The wind sighed fitfully in the branches of the pines and the oaks close by his little garden; a deep silence reigned all about him; and Iermola, sad and motionless, was beginning to dream as he prayed, when in the midst of this profound stillness the cry of a baby was suddenly heard, at first feeble and indistinct, then loud and shrill.

It was like the cry of a new-born baby; and it seemed very near, as though it came from the other side of the garden, out of the clump of pines and oaks.

"What can it be?" said the old man, interrupting his prayers, and rising from his bench. "It is now so late. Can it be possible that any silly woman can have crossed the river with her baby to come and ask for medicine?"

He paused and listened, but the trembling, feeble wailing did not seem to come nearer nor to recede; evidently the child remained in the same place. It was impossible to believe that any woman working in the fields could have left her cradle there; the chilliness of the evening, the lateness of the hour, the solitude of the secluded place, would not permit such a thought. And still the wailing cry continued.

"Ah! it is doubtless an owl," thought the old man, as he seated himself once more. "It is perched on one of the trees at the end of the garden, singing. But one could swear that it was a baby. How perfectly they can imitate the human voice!"

He continued to listen; the wailing became more and more distinct and pitiful.

"No, truly, it cannot be an owl; I must go and see. Perhaps some accident has happened. But what can it be?"

So saying, Iermola rose quickly, put on his cap, seized his stick, and rushed to the door, forgetting his pipe, which usually he never left behind him. When he reached the threshold, he became convinced that there was no longer any doubt that the cry he heard was not that of an owl, but the wail of an infant. This frightened the good man, who, following the sound of the voice, set out to see whence it came. He went at once to the garden, and thought he saw something white lying at the foot of one of the nearest oak-trees. The old man's eyes had not deceived him; on the thickly interwoven roots, padded and made velvety with mosses, a little baby, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, lay crying.

A baby! A baby here! all alone! deserted and cast off by its parents! The good man could scarcely conceive such an idea. He trembled with fright, surprise, sorrow, and pity; and darting forward, scarcely knowing what he did, he tenderly lifted the poor little creature, who, feeling perhaps that some one was near, immediately ceased to cry and be frightened.

Then, bewildered and forgetting his stick, the old man fled back to his chamber, carrying the baby, trembling, crying, and repeating over and over to himself, "A baby! A baby! How could this have happened?"

Suddenly it occurred to him that doubtless the little one had only been left alone for a moment; that the mother would be very anxious if she should not find it again on the spot where she had just left it.

He then began to shout as loudly as he could, repeating all the calls known to the Polesian tongue, which brought back to him his shepherd days; but no one answered.

"At any rate it is impossible to leave this poor baby out on so cold a night," said he, with emotion; "I shall take it to my room. Any one will immediately suppose that it is I who have picked it up."

He opened the door of his lodging. The fire had gone out in the stove; it was pitch dark. He deposited his living bundle on the bed, and again lighted his chips and twigs, of which this time he was lavish.

But when the light again glimmered through the room, and the old man returned to the side of the baby, who moaned constantly, his fright and astonishment knew no bounds. The little creature evidently did not belong to the peasant class; the clothing in which it was wrapped sufficed to show that. And in vain did Iermola imagine a thousand reasons, admit a thousand suppositions; he could not comprehend how a mother or a father could have been able to decide thus to abandon the innocent little creature, the very sight of whom caused him to shed tears of tenderness and emotion. In fact, from the moment when the baby's first cry had reached his ears and his heart, a strange feeling had taken possession of this old man hitherto so tranquil. He felt moved, frightened, but at the same time awakened and enlivened; it seemed as though he had grown twenty years younger in a few moments. He therefore examined with curiosity this little unknown being whom Providence, perhaps in pity for his terrible isolation, had sent him as a consolation at the very moment when he was sadly longing for some one tie which might still bind him to life.

The child, swaddled with care, was nevertheless clothed externally in such a manner as at first sight to conceal his origin. The heartless mother and unfeeling father, touched by some small feeling of solicitude, had covered the baby's long clothes entirely with a large piece of coarse white percale, leaving exposed only a part of the little suffering, weeping face.

Iermola gazed at the baby with his own sad eyes, and took its little hands in his.

It was some time before he remembered that there was something else to do; that a baby who cried so was perhaps hungry; that an unlooked-for burden had been sent him from heaven; that it would be difficult for him to take care of it, even with every exertion that he could make. Then came flashing like lightning before his mind the images of a cradle, a nurse, smiles, maternal cares, at the same time also his own poverty, which would not allow him to pay any one to take care of the little one.

Suddenly he said to himself that hireling hands were not fit to touch this gift of God,--this frail new-born being whom Providence had doubtless intrusted to him that he might be its nurse and father. Then he trembled, as it occurred to him that some one might take this baby from him; and at this thought he felt ready to faint with terror, although he had not yet been able to make up his mind what he should do with it.

"No," he cried aloud, "I will not give it up to any one; it is my child,--the child whom God has sent me. I will never desert the little orphan."

But he must hasten; the baby cried and moaned continually. Iermola again took it in his arms. What should he do? How should he begin? Whose advice should he ask?

As he was thus carrying the baby up and down the room, his arms filled and his mind bewildered by this strange adventure, a heavy little package escaped from the long clothes and dropped on the floor. Iermola in still greater astonishment picked it up and found about fifty pieces of gold wrapped in a scrap of paper. His surprise was so great that he almost let fall his precious burden.